Monkeys Can Talk, Researchers Discover

Coco has shown an amazing ability to comprehend language. She's made ryhmes, both through sound as well as creating "physical" ryhmes. She also teaches sign language to younger gorillas.

When one of her regular trainers took a day off, Coco got upset...Then she was told (signed) that the trainer's baby had died. Coco gave the sign that she was "crying".

I also saw a show on dolphins. The trainers would reward a particular dophin every time it learned a new trick. The trainer then wanted the dolphin to make up it's own trick, but did't know how to communicate this.

For weeks (or more) the dolphin would do old tricks, trying to earn the reward. As time went on, the dolphin became more and more depressed...Then one day, the dolphin cheered up and did a totally original trick, and was rewarded some fish...The dolphin then went on a creative binge, creating new trick after new trick. This shows that not only can dolphins understand us, but that they have creative thinking and can create original thoughts, then act them out.

And who are WE to even claim this? Dolphins have clicks and squeals that we don't, and elephants have grunts. HECK, humans aren't even really capable of doing what HUMANS can! They have found that babies have some abilities that are built up, or may disappear based on use, and a person that learned chinese early becomes more readily able to pickout and discern certain pitch changes. BTW at least some birds can do duets with themselves!

It is simply that people, like many other animals, have a certain range of abilities, or potential abilities, and found a way to utilize them.

Steve

"Krak krak! (Watch out, a leopard!)"

That means "watch out a cougar" in my neck of the woods... lol

Very true. We're only recently discovering how smart dogs are, even though we're with them every day:
Author Knows What Goes On 'Inside Of A Dog' : NPR
How intelligence is defined is pretty arbitrary to begin with (I'm easily really smart or really stupid by simple shifts of of criteria). If we defined intelligence by the skills necessary for a wild animal to survive, it wouldn't be so clear-cut which species is the smartest.

YES.That would correct.In our country, even monkeys are also some what intelligent.This is not a joke.I'm talking seriously.

In some regious areas,there are more.Since they know that people like to offer things to them in those areas.But i have heard that, there are different types of them.Don't know whether it is effected for their intelligence or not.

Steve - all instinct means is that an ability is "hardwired" into your brain. Scientists also used to insist humans were above instincts and had none, but they now know that language is instinctual. Any time two humans are raised together without hearing language from an outside source, they will develop their own. If they are raised ferrel, they will adopt the communication system of whatever pack they are raised in.

All I said is that humans have vocal chords that allow for a broader range of sounds. If many dogs had our vocal chord system they could actually speak back to us any words of our own language they know - they have to communicate with us via different means because their vocal chords just don't cut human speech. Some animals have more ability for diverse sounds than others, some just add on to sounds they are capable of to make different meaning.

Instinct can only account for ability to communicate -- individuals of any species will have more sharps on top of their instincts than others. Some animals are now known to use items for tools when just a few decades ago it was believed that humans alone use tools, for example. Maybe not every animal in a species will be able to think of something, but there are always smarter individuals in any species that will accomplish more amazing feats than others.

As far as your comments about human language -- We learn the language first and most innately that we are immersed within. Language is NOT seperate from sociology (see the Sapier-Wharf theory, which is the accepted model of the field that NPL comes from)...it is the means by which we put order to the chaos of our world. The Chinese recognize tones more than we do because it is a TONAL language. Japanese confuse "L" and "R" because in their language there is no difference between the sound. THey have to be taught to hear that difference. Nothing so phenomenal about that.

We have only a basic bit of tone use in our language which is purely morpheme based. We will change the meaning of our entire statements by changing the tone - it is this way that sarcasm works. The words mean the same in any tone but when we change that tone, we can tell the statement means something other than what we said. You change the tone of "yeah right" - and it will mean "yeah wrong" instead, for instance.

It's not clear at this point in time whether animals can use sarcasm in communication. Do they change tones of a bark or "krak" to show humor or sarcasm? Heck, we're just now admitting finally that animals can communicate and think on a level par with humans at all. It would be very interesting to find out exactly what those dolphins and whales are saying to each other about us when they get together though, LOL.

Some people do they same!

OK, so you are saying you have seen people throw poo around or something weird like that? - BTW, I actually do know if I have seen someone else "lick anothers". How could you not know that?????